Driver in Ohio wrong-way crash had just left work

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A wrong-way driver who crashed into a car carrying sorority sisters on their way to a spring break trip, killing three of the students, had left work fewer than 30 minutes before police received the first 911 call about the car, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said Friday.

The patrol's Bowling Green post also said it's still investigating where Winifred Lein, who also died in the crash, got on Interstate 75 and how fast she was going.

The post said Lein, 69, of Perrysburg checked into her job at Toledo's Jeep plant at 5:52 p.m. on March 1 and left the plant at 1:47 a.m. the following day.

The Jeep highway exit is at mile marker 205, or 19 miles from the mile marker where a trooper spotted the car just seconds before the crash. That leaves just 10 minutes of Lein's time unaccounted for, said Lt. D.W. Laubacher of the Bowling Green post.

The patrol says no businesses around I-75 said they saw Lein before the crash.

"The question is, what happened between the time she pulled out and the time the crash happened," Laubacher said.

A security guard who checked Lein out of the Jeep plant told the patrol she seemed fine as she left.

The first 911 call about a wrong-way driver came at 2:14 a.m., two minutes before a trooper spied the car on the highway, which was just seconds before the crash.

Video of the dashboard camera in trooper P.R. Mohre's car shows the officer switching lanes to avoid the on-coming car, then turning around to chase Lein's car.

The patrol continues to investigate where Lein got on the highway.

On Wednesday, the patrol arrested a 47-year-old woman for driving the wrong way on Interstate 475 in Toledo. No one was hurt, but the woman was involved in two minor accidents, police said.

Lein's car struck a car carrying five Alpha Xi Delta members as they caravanned with other sorority sisters in separate cars to the Detroit airport for a trip to a Dominican Republic resort.

Students killed in the crash were Sarah Hammond, 21, of Yellow Springs; Rebekah Blakkolb, 20, of Aurora; and Christina Goyett, 19, of Bay City, Mich.